


Blanket Permissions and You

by Sarshi



Category: Fandom - Fandom, Meta - Fandom, nonfiction - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarshi/pseuds/Sarshi
Summary: Authors! What happens to your fics post-you?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Blanket Permissions and You

I'm writing this later than 2 AM, with a sore throat, and exhausted by myself and by yet another evening that could have been lovely, and became agitated instead. 

I'm an anxious sort - and a bit depressive. I have fics I've meant to finish and never did. They're still in my mind, a constant litany of "one day, I'll write..." that never actually goes anywhere, despite my best intentions. I never want to abandon them, but then they just... stop happening. I get dragged into work. Into real life. Time is less.

I started writing fic when I was 13 and I wrote my first Mary Sue story without even realizing it. It was in the Harry Potter fandom and I'd just discovered that people wrote huge, novel-length fics for _fun_. So I wrote a thing about Sirius Black being brought back to life. That was it. That was the whole thing. A fix-it with a Mary Sue with a funky name and who was, like me, Romanian. People told me it was a Mary Sue and I learned the term - and I learned new words in English, like "redeem", "grin" and "smirk".

Fandom was, for a long time, the place where I could just write crap. I started "Humble Shopkeeper" back when I was slowly realizing I was in a crappy relationship, around people who thought my writing was crap and my ideas of the world sucked. It was an act of rebellion, though I didn't think of it that way. In "Mangaka", I poured my longing for a world that was no longer accessible. In "The Affair of Loki and Darcy", I just had fun. "Aimless", my latest not-abandoned story, is about my love for Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel, and the feels they give me. "Keeping Strigas in a Cage" is about femslash and the fact that something clicked for me and I realized that I don't need to be lesbian, or even bi, or even vaguely attracted to women, to write and enjoy femslash for itself.

I like thinking I'm still (active?) in fandom, but I've slowly drifted away the past few years. The world has come, and turned me around. I'm 31 now. And anxious. And a bit depressive.

The thing about being anxious and a bit depressive is that I often ask myself "what if". What if my sore throat is not just a sore throat caused by the neck tension that's been making me feel like I've been suffocating for the past two days? (Except when I forget about it) What if it's a sign of cancer? What if it's acid reflux and I'm actually bleeding from the throat and I'll die? What if it's COVID-19, and the next step is pneumonia and I die? I honestly think it's just a sore throat, but who knows. I could still get run over by a car tomorrow. I can still discover a new allergy and doctors won't be able to figure out why I'm dying until after I'm dead. (A colleague of mine had a close call like that.) A couple of years ago, a piece of masonry fell on my head and, while it didn't knock me unconscious, I felt like I was swimming through the world for the rest of the day. I could have died, if I hadn't worn my hat, if it had been slightly bigger, if I'd had just a bit more bad luck.

Don't worry, it's not constant. The anxiety is not always about me, either - most often, it's for others.

Another thing I am is nostalgic. I remember the past and wish I could revisit it at times. Talk to high school colleagues I haven't seen in ten years as if we still knew each other. I wonder if I talked to some of them for the last time - not because either of us is dead, but because life might never bring us together again. I used to know a girl who was absolutely brilliant and who pursued a career in biochemistry in a different country. She was kind to me once and I wanted to say hi and thank her for that kindness. Last I checked, she had a ph.D. - I e-mailed her at the address listed on her university's website and she never replied. I don't know if she got my e-mail. I don't know if she _did_ get it, but thought it was way out of line. The fact of the matter is that, while in the grand scheme of things, I didn't _need_ to talk to her and it's fine if I never do, there is a chance that I _never will_. I don't think either of us ever sat down and said, "I'll never talk to her again", but here we are. The end of our acquaintance came and went unknown and unremarked. Not with a bang, but, probably, with a "See you later".

Things happen. We change. We drift apart from the things we used to love - one day you're here, the next day you're busy and can't come, the day after that you're still busy, and in a few years' time, you're far away, though you never intended to leave. Or maybe, you die. 

I've seen a great number of authors vanishing from fandom. Some disappear with nary a sign, mid-fic, never to be seen again. Others take their works off and you never see them again. Some finish their works, and drift away, and who can find them now?

One day, one of these will happen to you, to me, to everyone on this site. It will creep up on us. Or it will just... happen. 

...I'm not sure the fic I write here is amazing. I'm not sure it deserves a lot of love, or if anyone will stare at the screen one day and wonder who I am and how they can track me down to see if I'm alive. I'm not sure if, if I leave fandom, and they track me down, it will be worth the effort - I'm a mixed bag of nice and jerk, and who knows what you're getting. I can't even promise I'll finish stories, because I'm the first person I promised that to, and here we are.

But let's say someone loves something I do, the way I love some fics. It doesn't matter why, or how. And they'll want to draw that story, or podfic it, or transform it in some way. It won't be about me - it will be about their relationship with something in that story. Do I want them to be able to do it?

Well... yes. I write fanfic primarily for my own enjoyment these days. I like comments and kudos, but they no longer hold as much importance as they used to hold. But the reason I _post_ fanfic is so that other people can enjoy it. As the disclaimers of old used to say, "I don't own the universe or the characters, I'm just playing with the author's toys for a while :)" - so I don't _gain_ anything material from fic. I honestly want people to have fun, within the reasonable limits of "please don't claim you wrote my stories".

That's why I have blanket permission stated on my profile. Because I don't know when I'm here, or if I'll be here tomorrow, or ten years from now, or fifty years from now. If Ao3 and the OTW last as long as I hope they will, maybe some kid in 2060 will want to record a fan film of "The Affair of Loki and Darcy" - will they still be able to do it? Without having to track down an old lady who might not even be using "Sarshi" as a handle anymore? Or without a Ouija board?

You might not feel the same way. You might want people to _never_ transform your works, for whatever reason. Well, in that case, what if you die tomorrow? Will people know to leave your work alone? Or maybe you want to be contacted first to be asked for permission - will that still hold 4 years from now? If you move away from fandom, will you be alright with a kid checking their e-mail every hour, then every day, then every once in a while, hoping you're going to let them draw your scenes?

Today you might check your e-mail daily, or weekly, and you might feel like you're always going to be in fandom, but you don't know when life happens, or life stops happening. When your links work, and when they'll be broken. I've checked one of the authors whose fics I used to love back in the early 2000s, and her profile says she can be found at her new Yahoo!Group, HuntressSmiles - one day, that can be _your_ profile.

Think about what you want for yourself and your fics. Don't leave it to chance, but write it out on your profile - if you want people to have fun and draw/record an audiobook of/translate your fic/write fanfic of your fic at their own discretion, say so. If you'd rather they ask for permission first, say so. If you want to be told they do it after they post, say so. If you have conditions, you can think it out a bit, so it works both _now_ and in a future where you've moved on - "Ask for permission - but if I haven't posted anything in the past 5 years, presume I'm inactive and [...]."

Fandom is a community, and one in which we rarely give our real names. People leave, new people come, some change their nicknames and are still there, though less traceable. It's more fragile, in some ways, than networks of writers of other types, than other groups centered around interests. But it also possesses creativity and passion, and the desire to love something until you make it your own, by transforming it yourself. 

Consider a blanket permission for others to play with your works, because that's what we all do in fandom. But even if you don't want to give one, consider other permissions, and where you stand. You'll state things for when you won't be here - whether on vacation, or 50 years from now, when you'll be living it up in a castle and lost your current Ao3 handle. As a bonus, you'll also be helping those who are here, and who are perhaps too shy to ask, or feel like they'd presume too much if they dared ask. 


End file.
